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You could also argue Gandalf himself "failed" at his task initially, since he died before the intended goal (eliminating Sauron) was achieved. I took direct divine intervention (sending him back) and some tweaking (sending him back far more powerful than he had been) to allow him to "finish the job".
And the situation for the people was even bleaker than you stated. It wasn't so much "Wait and pray they succeed" it was "Sacrifice yourselves and everyone else you care about in regular battles you have no hope of winning; and allow all you have to be destroyed in the vague one in a million chance that they succeed in a mission that logically they have no chance of." "Better to die free than live a slave" sounds nice on a banner, but in practical terms, it's a hard thing to convince anyone but an utter fanatic to practice (especially when "dying free" will most likely mean "dying in manners to agonizing to contemplate, or even being placed in a state where the enemy makes it so that you can't die and are tortured for eternity for their amusement.") Few will "Walk into Hell for a Heavenly Cause" if they know there is no chance of walking out again, or that their walking in will keep others they care about from being dragged in.) To most men, Gandalf would have seemed crazy, or as Denethor saw him, as big a threat as Sauron himself with regards to keeping themselves in one piece.
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